In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
Pushing Israel’s Right To Exist Is The Wrong Strategy
Neither Israel nor the United States needs an “Israel’s right to exist” certificate from Hamas in order to have dealings with that movement. To insist on this precondition for contact not only places an unnecessary obstacle on the road to dealing with the Hamas-led government in the Palestinian Authority. It also sends a subtle and…
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Opinion Nonpartisan Nonprofits a Sine Qua Non
Next week Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican in the midst of a most difficult re-election campaign, is scheduled to host a “Jewish Leadership Forum.” The event is to feature a number of prominent Jewish Republican leaders, as well as representatives of two Jewish nonprofits, the Orthodox Union and the Jewish Institute for National Security…
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Opinion A Nation Denied a Homeland, Right Here in America
In 1795, the homeland of the Oneida Indian Nation, located in upstate New York, was obtained by the State of New York in clear violation of federal law. Today, more than two centuries later, representatives of the state are trying to prevent the federal government from restoring a small part of that homeland to the…
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Letters July 14, 2006
Rabbi Eric Yoffie accurately observes in a July 7 opinion article that many Israeli leaders do not fully understand Diaspora Jewry (“Confront Ignorance of Diaspora Movements”). However, he ignores the corresponding lack of appreciation for the nuances of Israeli society by an American Jewry that does not speak Hebrew and in the main has never…
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Opinion When No One Believes in Peace
It’s the juxtapositions that do it, every time. They beguile, they irritate, they disconcert, they seduce and confuse and fascinate without end. The evening sea breeze reaches the patio off the beach in southern Jaffa. On the beach, a scattering of families, the children mostly young. Arabs; that’s mostly who live in this part of…
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Opinion Jewish Cheers for Deutschland
Germany’s quest to become soccer world champion ended Tuesday with a last-minute loss to Italy, but the host country of the World Cup has won nonetheless. During the past month, the Germans presented a new image to the world: easy-going, tolerant, open-minded and funny. Germans seemed at ease with themselves and with the rest of…
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Opinion Thunder in Gaza
It’s hard not to notice the huge imbalance between Israel’s large-scale actions in Gaza in the past two weeks — bombing bridges, government offices and a university; leaving half the population without power; rounding up elected officials — and the ostensible goal of the operation, rescuing a single hostage. The actions have won Israel growing…
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Opinion Choosing Life, and Change
The Rabbinical Council of America, the leading body of Modern Orthodox rabbis, took a bold step last week with the issuance of a legal ruling that categorically bans smoking as a violation of the Torah. The council’s boldness is not in accepting four decades of mounting medical evidence, but in letting the findings of modern…
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Opinion Calls for Respect Don’t Pay Non-Orthodox Rabbis’ Bills
Why do so many of us rabbis seem so invested in whether Israeli President Moshe Katsav addresses Reform and Conservative rabbis by their title? So what if he insists on not giving due recognition to the Reform movement’s Rabbi Eric Yoffie. And so what if he then turns around and assures Rabbi Jerry Epstein that…
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Opinion Confront Ignorance of Diaspora Movements
It is stunning how little some of Israel’s leaders know about Diaspora Jewry in general, and about American Jewry in particular. Almost six decades after the establishment of the Jewish state, many of Israel’s senior politicians have had little contact with Diaspora Jews, and they know virtually nothing about the grassroots religious movements that are…
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Opinion Preserve the Shards of the Shattered Glass Ceiling
Last week, 34 years after becoming the first woman ever ordained by a rabbinical seminary, Sally Priesand retired. Throughout her career, Priesand’s achievements have carried both personal and symbolic weight — and so, too, with her retirement. Since her ordination in 1972, Priesand and the more than 800 other women who have followed her into…
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